


Vigil

by buttercups3



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: F/M, Masturbation, oral sex flashback, shrugs, um...maybe this is creepy?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-28
Updated: 2013-12-28
Packaged: 2018-01-06 10:40:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1105826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttercups3/pseuds/buttercups3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A very lonely Miles keeps watch over the comatose Rachel as she recovers from her suicide attempt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vigil

**Author's Note:**

> Un-betaed, and I'm really run down, so thar be blunders ahead, ye mateys.

Miles begins to nod off in the old Shaker rocking chair beside Rachel’s bed. When his chin hits chest, he snaps awake, legs flailed in panic. He’s fallen asleep and shirked his watch. In a moment, they’ll be crawling with enemy troops: Al Qaeda or militia? His eyes dart around and settle on the blonde mane fanned out on the white pillow, sweat plastering stray strands to the ethereal skin of Rachel’s face. So they are secure – or, at least, there is no outside threat, and Rachel is currently safe from herself.

Miles scoots his rocker over a bit closer and lifts her fragile wrist to his lips, kissing just below the brown-tinged bandage and swallowing the lump in his throat. Then, he pecks each of her fingertips individually, because he’s always admired those delicate, rosy buds. And why not? Nobody is here to judge him or them and their unholy history together. Gene is out on a call, and Charlie bugged out before (instigating?) the nadir of Rachel’s decline.

Miles traces the faint worry lines of Rachel’s brow, drawing aside each of her ragged locks. She desperately needs her hair washed, needs a bath in general. The thought of caressing her with soap sends a shiver straight to his lap, as guilt claws its way up his esophagus. Rachel is helpless, in pieces. It’s not right to think about her like that. But again, there’s no one here, so Miles allows himself one last kiss on her forehead – this time a little more indulgent (he’s aware of the weight in his pants growing) – before settling back into his chair. Miles is lonely as hell as most of his waking hours are spent right here. 

Just when Miles’ brain relaxes again, it is rattled from placidity by the memory of Gene’s scream. A grown man screaming in that particular way takes Miles immediately back to combat. When Gene’s anguished cry penetrated straight through Miles’ civilian exterior to the Marine within, Miles had bounded and leapt over several pieces of furniture to get to Rachel’s bedroom. He’d even drawn a sword. But when he saw Gene using the sheets to stem the blood from Rachel’s opened vein, his sword clattered to the ground. He blindly received orders from the doctor – “get the gauze from the hall desk” – in a kind of numb terror he hadn’t experienced since he’d nearly lost Charlie. When he’d returned, gauze streaming from his clenched fists, he dimly registered wet on his cheeks from tears or sweat. Gene stared for eight hours straight at his daughter tossing in some medically induced sleep, as Miles paced in and out.

At one point, Miles intruded upon Gene sobbing, “Rachel, how could you?”

There was no way to know the right thing to say in that situation, only the wrong thing; and Miles felt sure that that was the wrong thing, even if Rachel wasn’t conscious to hear it. So later that night, when he’d finally convinced Gene to get some rest by swearing to keep a steadfast vigil, Miles had whispered in an unresponsive Rachel’s ear:

“Hey. I want you. Please don’t leave me.”

It felt so strange and unnatural to say aloud, and he’d had to choke back strangling tears. Then, Miles thought what he couldn’t say, maybe will never be capable of saying, but he thought it so intensely that perhaps it penetrated into her subconscious: _I love you so much, I can barely breathe._ He wished to God he could take away the consuming loathing she had misdirected to herself. _  
_

Miles takes off his boots and sets his stockinged feet on the bed so that they just graze Rachel’s blanketed legs. He relishes the heat off her body. It reminds him that she’s alive. He unhooks the button of his fly and unzips, sliding his fingers through the flap of his shorts to graze his most sensitive skin. It swells response, and he closes his eyes, increasing the pressure, tracing the prominent vein and the ridges around its head with one finger. Shivering, grunting, he lets himself drift to where he needs to get off.

He thinks about her skin when she was young – unblemished as a fresh snowfield. How could a woman _be_ that perfect? Nearly all of their unions were rushed, but one time, while Ben was away collaborating with some scientist in D.C., Miles and Rachel had taken a cabin by the lake. It was winter, so they’d tangled up naked in front of a roaring fire under a pile of blankets, clinging ravenously to each other – kissing an earlobe here, Miles pulling a strand of her golden hair under his nostrils and inhaling deeply. She’d giggled at how earnest he looked. His intensity never frightened her, like it had Emma, nor did it compel her to needle him, like it did Bass. Miles decided that weekend that skin was the sexiest of all body parts. They’d made out, touching tongues, him feeling her breathtakingly soft breasts with measured slowness. He’d never wanted it to end, didn’t even want to get to the sex part, because that would be the beginning of the end.

Miles grinds himself now, pulling rough and slow. He hasn’t even pulled it all the way out, but he does lift the hem of his shirt with his left hand, letting his dick slide through his stomach hair.

That time by the lake was when she’d first really given him _that_. She’d nuzzled down beneath their cocoon and taken him into her soft lips, the wet warmth of her mouth, her tongue embarking on its private exploration. He’d almost exploded into orgasm right then and there.

She’d grinned around his considerable hardness, and he shook his head at how beautiful and dirty she looked. It hurts now to think about how young they were. But Miles would be kidding himself to say that _he_ was innocent. By that time at the lake, his unit had killed civilians, children even; and the thing was, sometimes the Marines (Miles included) felt so angry in Iraq, they wished the whole damn country would just go up in flames. Like if they could find a magnifying glass big enough to cover it with that fierce sun beating down, they would exult in watching those ugly, robed fuckers sizzle like so many ants. Yes, Miles was already a monster, his seed dribbling out between Rachel’s exquisite pink lips and down her chin. She just didn’t know it yet. She sure as hell knows now.

Pausing on the image of Rachel sweetly sucking him to release, Miles’ guts tangle and unwind; he empties. He allows just a minute more to hold himself and feel unbearably sorry for being the kind of man who masturbates next to his comatose ex-girlfriend, and then he zips back up. 

Miles slowly opens his eyes to gaze at the sleeping Rachel again. To his surprise, he finds her luminous blue eyes open, lucid. Sure she wakes occasionally, but usually her eyes remain glassed over; she never speaks. His cheeks burn like the fires of hell. Did she see?

“Ben?” she mutters in confusion.

Miles scrambles, nearly careening out of the rocking chair to the floor. He kneels beside her in a flash. He hasn’t heard her voice in over a month.

“Hey, hey, Rachel,” he whispers, afraid to startle her.

“Ben?” she asks again, and his heart drops.

“No, it’s Miles.”

“Can you…”

“What? What do you need?”

“I…” 

“Do you need a blanket? A bedpan? What is it, Rache?” Miles asks her, leaning in close. He can smell her stale breath, feels almost hysterically glad to hear her speak.

“Can you hold me?” she finally manages.

Miles squeezes his eyes shut. It’s just like Charlie – Charlie who hugs him tight when she needs comfort even in the midst of a goddamn battle. Rachel’s request is so pure and his own needs so crass. 

“Of course,” Miles murmurs and slides onto the bed next to her, resting his back against the headboard. He gathers her deflated little body into his arms and holds her to his chest. As she nuzzles down into his armpit, he assures her, “I’ve got you, Baby. I’ve got you.” He’s even surprised at this slippage of the old term of endearment. Their bodies seem to remember each other, melting into all the familiar crevices. 

Rachel drifts off again, mumbling, but he clings just as tightly to her. Miles is sticky inside of his boxers, his body spent from his orgasm. Sighing, he kisses her hair.

Suddenly, Gene darkens the doorway.

“Miles, what are you…?” he looks angry.

Maybe it appears that Miles is taking advantage of Rachel (and maybe that isn’t so far from the truth), but he suddenly feels defensive. After all, she asked for him…or Ben, really, but that’s beside the point.

“Rachel spoke.”

“She…what did she say?” Gene’s voice trembles.

“She asked for a hug,” Miles answers, staring at her ratty hair again. Finally, he allows his eyes to drift back up to Gene’s severe face. It has softened slightly. Rachel is Gene’s baby after all. He spent eighteen years holding her just like this whenever she asked. Miles relents as well and gently extracts Rachel’s slumbering form from his arms to lay her back on the pillow.

Miles gets up and puts back on his boots. As he’s about to pass Gene, Gene gives him a look that _could_ be a begrudging thank you or it could be a death wish. Either way, Miles nods and walks on. Once he’s out of sight, he lifts the neck of his t-shirt to his nose to inhale. It still smells like her.


End file.
